text: On 16 November 1945 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Hahn had been awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his discovery of the fission of heavy atomic nuclei." Hahn was still at Farm Hall when the announcement was made; thus, his whereabouts were a secret, and it was impossible for the Nobel committee to send him a congratulatory telegram. Instead, he learned about his award on 18 November through the Daily Telegraph. His fellow interned  scientists celebrated his award by giving speeches, making jokes, and composing songs.
  Hahn had been nominated for the chemistry and the physics Nobel prizes many times even before the discovery of nuclear fission. Several more followed for the discovery of fission. The Nobel prize nominations were vetted by committees of five, one for each award. Although Hahn and Meitner received nominations for physics, radioactivity and radioactive elements had traditionally been seen as the domain of chemistry, and so the Nobel Committee for Chemistry evaluated the nominations. The committee received reports from Theodor Svedberg and . These chemists were impressed by Hahn's work, but felt that of Meitner and Frisch was not extraordinary, and did not understand why the physics community regarded their work as seminal. As for Strassmann, although his name was on the papers, there was a long-standing policy of conferring awards on the most senior scientist in a collaboration. The committee therefore recommended that Hahn alone be given the chemistry prize.
  Under Nazi rule, Germans had been forbidden to accept Nobel prizes after the Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Carl von Ossietzky in 1936. The Nobel Committee for Chemistry's recommendation was therefore rejected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1944, which also decided to defer the award for one year. When the Academy reconsidered the award in September 1945, the war was over and thus the German boycott had ended. Also, the chemistry committee had now become more cautious, as it was apparent that much research had taken place in the United States in secret, and suggested deferring for another year, but the Academy was swayed by Göran Liljestrand, who argued that it was important for the Academy to assert its independence from the Allies of World War II, and award the prize to a German, as it had done after World War I when it had awarded it to Fritz Haber. Hahn therefore became the sole recipient of the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
  The invitation to attend the Nobel festivities was transmitted via the British Embassy in Stockholm. On 4 December, Hahn was persuaded by two of his Alsos captors, American Lieutenant Colonel Horace K. Calvert and British Lieutenant Commander Eric Welsh, to write a letter to the Nobel committee accepting the prize but stating that he would not be able to attend the award ceremony on 10 December since his captors would not allow him to leave Farm Hall. When Hahn protested, Welsh reminded him that Germany had lost the war. Under the Nobel Foundation statutes, Hahn had six months to  deliver the Nobel Prize lecture, and until 1 October 1946 to cash the 150,000 Swedish krona cheque.
  Hahn was repatriated from Farm Hall on 3 January 1946, but it soon became apparent that difficulties obtaining permission to travel from the British government meant that he would be unable to travel to Sweden before December 1946. Accordingly, the Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation obtained an extension from the Swedish government. Hahn attended the year after he was awarded the prize. On 10 December 1946, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, King Gustav V of Sweden presented him with his Nobel Prize medal and diploma. Hahn gave 10,000 krona of his prize to Strassmann, who refused to use it.